


the never-ending present

by somehowunbroken



Series: to live within [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-05 16:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16371491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: Toronto loves all of her people, but some are more special than others; some are truly her children. She'll do whatever she can for them.





	the never-ending present

**Author's Note:**

> this story started out life earlier this year as a series of tweets for lotts, who asked for stories about mitch marner being loved. instead of reccing something, i wrote the bare bones of this for them. the idea stuck with me after that, though, and when the story i'd originally planned to write for this HBB had to be scrapped, i asked if they minded me expanding the story and using it here. they agreed, and this happened fairly quickly after that point. thanks, lotts, for being okay with me revisiting this thing that i made for you and changing it and adding things around the edges. and a bunch in the middle, too, and also also thanks for still being excited about reading it through again. <3
> 
> a million thanks to ari, who read this in more than one iteration and assured me that it made sense and worked. also thanks to my roommate, who is not in hockey fandom but lets me bounce ideas off of her anyway, and who very vocally encouraged me to write something that's a little bit weird. she also beta read this for me when i asked. also, shoutout to my twitter timeline, where everyone was incredibly excited when i said that i was working on this project.
> 
> an amazing entire round of thank yous to talahui, who created a wonderful podfic to go along with this fic. i had tears into my eyes listening to it; it's truly wonderful to hear this story read aloud. [the podfic is linked here](archiveofourown.org/works/16414460); please listen to it and let her know how incredible it is!
> 
> song title from the gord downie song [the never-ending present](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LznQytDNcRQ). i was finally able to listen to gord downie's final solo album while writing this, and it became sort of vitally important to me to use his lyrics to name it. this is not off his last album, but what better title could there be for a story about how time both does and doesn't matter when you live outside of it?

This is a story about Mitch Marner being loved.

This is about a boy who loved a city so much that it grew a heart to love him back, that it found a way to surround him with more love than he knew what to do with, but never more than he wanted. There's no such thing, not for this boy.

-0-

The draft is always a special night.

Toronto sits quietly at her table; the men who call her home surround her, muttering to each other about possibilities and probabilities and hopes and dreams. She listens; she always listens, always hears, though she doesn't always mind what she's been told. They can give her all the guidance they want, but in the end, the choice is still hers.

Edmonton goes first; the crowd goes silent as she walks to the stage, head held high though her clothing is ragged, worn, brightly coloured but with spots of wear showing at the seams. Her pride is etched into her face, and Toronto remembers how well she wore it when it was all warranted. At least, she reflects, Long Island knows when to put it away.

Edmonton calls the name of the boy she has chosen; another saviour, another legend, another poor child to be sent into her clutches and given the weight of her mantle. He seems strong, Toronto thinks, but then, they all do at first. She watches as he bows his head, as Edmonton presses her cold, cracked lips to his forehead and he shivers, ever so slightly. He stands straight soon after, still brimming with confidence, and offers his arm as the rest of the delegation leaves the stage.

Toronto smiles. Maybe Edmonton won't break this boy.

There's a wild look in Buffalo's eyes, but there almost always is these days; she has gone far too long without seeing any fruits for her many labours, and though the boy she calls looks every bit as brash and strong as Edmonton's, Toronto thinks it will take more than a good choice here today to calm her and the wildness that she carries. They're not friends, she and Buffalo, but they share too much for Toronto to hate her. She's not sure Buffalo agrees, but, well. Toronto can live with that.

Arizona's boy is next, and he's tall with a sweet smile, and all Toronto can hope is that the sun doesn't bleed it out of him. He's hers-but-not-hers, someone she can only tend to in the summers now, just like Edmonton's boy. She loves them as she does all her sons and daughters, but she feels no pang of loss as he offers his arm, and Toronto claps politely as he walks off the stage.

"Now, remember," Hunter says, leaning into her space. She turns to look at him, and she has to admire his bravery; she may not like him, this large, loud, overly brash man who thinks he can make her decisions for her, but he has never once balked in her presence. That's a feat that not many can claim. "We want someone big. Someone we can use down low, someone who—"

"I have already made my choice," she says, rising as the commissioner calls her name. "You'd do well to remember that."

Hunter's nostrils flare, but he falls silent. He's a smart man, Hunter, but he'll take what she gives him, and right now her attention has moved from him to Dubas, who sits and watches without trying to force her hand.

She likes Dubas.

The walk to the stage is familiar and not, practised and new; it's the same every year, but the location is always changing, the currents and relationships and people involved always different. Still, Toronto feels a sense of ease as she climbs the stairs and makes her way to the podium.

"I am Toronto," she says, leaning in. She has no need for the microphone, but she likes the pomp and circumstance of it, always has. There's an art to playing within the rules that the humans have set, and Toronto has an appreciation for art in many, many forms. "And I choose for my own Mitchell Marner."

-0-

The boy is small, nearly incredibly so; he seems to have no fear, but someone his size probably should. She gathers her wits about her and steps forward, bending down in front of him.

"Hi," he says, giving her the full force of a bright smile. He says nothing else, just holds his hands up, and she only hesitates slightly before lifting him and standing. He looks at her for a long moment before speaking. "Mommy?"

"I'm not your mother, little one," she says, smiling at him. There's someone frantic nearby; she can feel it reverberating around her, panic bouncing off the storefronts so thickly that she's amazed the humans walking around don't catch it. She's often amazed by humans, though, and it's generally by what they can't tell of her.

The little boy frowns and puts his hand on her face. "Mommy," he says again, and this time there's no question in his tone.

"We can find her," Toronto suggests. She has helped lost children before; she can't always do it, not every time, but she does what she can. It's little trouble to step forward now, to listen to the waves of panic and follow them back to where they're strongest, to find a frantic woman yelling into the crowd. "Look, child."

The boy laughs delightedly. This is when the children usually squirm in her arms, begging to be let down, but this boy makes no such movements. Instead, he gathers the fabric of her shirt in his fist and leans away from her, just a bit. "Mommy!" he calls, waving as the woman whirls around. "I find!"

"You did no such thing," Toronto says, quiet but amused, as the woman rushes forward.

This is new territory, she realises quickly; the thing about returning lost children who can't wait to be reunited with their guardians is that she can fade back into the crowd, take leave of a physical form and watch from below, above, everywhere, as the reunion takes place. She's never before had to interact with a parent in this situation.

"Oh," the woman says, pulling up short a meter from Toronto. "Oh my god, you're..."

"This is your son," Toronto says. There's no question in it, but something needs to be said here, and the woman has fallen silent.

"Yes," she says. She still doesn't reach for him, and he seems content to stay where he is, settled calmly into Toronto's side. "I'm—my name is Bonnie Marner. That's my son Mitchell."

"I'm glad I was able to return him to you," Toronto says. "He seems like a lovely boy."

"Mommy," Mitchell interjects. He's looking at Bonnie, but his hand is still twisted in Toronto's shirt. He turns to look at her and again puts his other hand on her face. "Mommy?"

Bonnie gasps; Toronto feels it as much as she hears it, the ground quaking beneath her feet, the sky murmuring above her as Mitchell looks up at her. The clouds are reflected in his eyes, blue and white swirling together, and it's never happened quite this way before, but then again, it never happens quite the same way twice.

"My son," Toronto murmurs as Mitchell's eyes return to a more normal human colour, as he smiles with a brightness that is almost foreign to her. "You truly did find me, didn't you?"

"I had no idea," Bonnie says, voice a strange mix between awe and fear. "Is he—what do we do now?"

"He is your son," Toronto says firmly. Humans sometimes had strange ideas about what it means when their children are also her children. "Raise him as you always planned to." She runs her fingers through his hair, soft and light, then pats him gently on the back.

"Mommy," he says, almost disappointed, as Toronto shifts her weight. Bonnie reaches for him and he goes to her easily, folding into her side just as he had Toronto's.

"You'll look after him?" Bonnie asks. There's no fear in her voice now, no awe, just a mother's concern for her child, a protectiveness that Toronto knows all too well.

"I will," Toronto promises. She reaches out to brush the hair from Mitchell's forehead, then leans in and presses her lips there. She leaves no visible mark; she has never seen the point of making her children bear her scars, not like Johannesburg or San Salvador or Chicago. Mitchell smiles at her when she pulls back, a quiet sort of thing, and Toronto smiles back at him.

"Be well," she says, looking from Mitchell to Bonnie. Bonnie nods, opening her mouth as if to speak, but she closes it without saying anything. She nods again, clutching at her son.

Toronto takes a step back, then another, then another. She lets her physical form slip but keeps watching, feeling herself echo through the streets, the buildings, the weeds pushing themselves up through the cracks in every sidewalk. It's an easy thing to follow Bonnie and Mitchell, to listen in as Bonnie winds them uptown. She stops watching when they cross her border; she could follow without question, but she doesn't need to.

Mitchell is her child now. She will have the power to know everything that happens in his life.

-0-

Toronto is not so proud as to say that she never makes mistakes, but she knows that she hasn't with choosing to draft her son.

Mitch is happy and bright and he works so, so hard, dedicates himself to his craft and trains diligently to make sure he's the absolute best he can be. He's quick and nimble, smart, honest, and she very rarely gets to see him play, but oh, she's seen enough. She'll be able to see much, much more soon, and she has to summon all of the patience buried deep in her bones when the Maple Leafs decide that he's not ready this year.

"I'll be better," he says the night he gets the phone call. He'd driven into the city proper and sat on a bench; he can't summon her, not as such, but she notices when he's near, when he's in need. He hadn't had to wait long before she'd gathered herself and sat beside him. "I'll prove that I'm good enough to be here, and next year they won't have a choice but to keep me."

"You are not a disappointment, not now and not in a year's time or a lifetime's time," she says firmly. Time is strange for her and her kin; she knows how long a year is, knows how it feels to wait that long, especially to one as young as Mitch. She doesn't experience time like humans do, though; it's hers to use as she pleases, moving backwards and forwards and choosing moments in which to appear when she wants to, needs to. It doesn't make her immune to its effects on others, even if she often takes a moment longer to remember about time than humans do. It's an occupational hazard of sorts, she thinks wryly, but a year is a year is a year, and it will pass in its due course. She can remind Mitch of that.

He turns to her, surprise flickering across his face. "I know," he says after a moment, smile appearing quickly. His eyes swirl blue and white, nearly shining in his face. "I was just saying, I'm gonna go back to London and get even better, and next year I'll get to stay. Thanks for the encouragement, though."

She smiles at him in response. "I chose you," she says simply. "You're my child, and it's my duty to make sure you know that you have value and worth no matter what, and that you are never a disappointment."

Mitch's smile widens further, and he leans against her side. She remembers meeting him, how his tiny body had curled into hers; he hasn't grown out of the habit, though his size makes it more challenging now. She always obliges him, though. She would never turn him away, not when he's always trying to come home. Even among her children, it's rare for her to find anyone who loves her so.

"I will bring you help," she says quietly. "When you come back and show them all you can do, I will make sure there's someone there who complements you, so they can all see."

He laughs. "I'd be fine if you just made sure I had a friend," he says lightly. "Like, I'm not gonna say no to a killer centre to play with, but... yeah."

"A friend," she echoes. She forgets, sometimes, how humans operate, how much they need even as they give so much away. Friendship isn't foreign to her, but she doesn't rely on it, doesn't depend on it as much as humans do in general, and as much as Mitch does in particular. "I suppose I can find someone for you."

"I'd appreciate it," he says, leaning in to kiss her cheek lightly. "I should go."

"Be well, child," she says, gripping his hand tightly in her own before rising and heading into the shadows. He stays put for a moment, not straining to see where she goes or what she does but waiting all the same, and then he stands and walks to his car.

 _A friend,_ she thinks as he drives off. She has some work to do.

-0-

He is five, and he's sitting on a park bench in the middle of spring, intently watching a group of older boys chase a soccer ball around a field. He doesn't flinch as she sits gently beside him, this boy who has her blue and white swirling through his veins, just keeps his gaze on one of the boys on the field.

"That's my brother," he says, finally turning to her with a bright smile. "His name is Chris and he likes soccer."

She smiles at him, soft, kind. She can be, in the springtime. "Should you be telling such things to strangers?"

He laughs as if she's told the world's greatest joke. "You're not a _stranger,_ " he says, explaining it as if she's a child of his age. "I remember you."

"What's my name, then?" she asks, trying not to let on to the sudden surge of excitement she feels. This boy is one who will put down roots and keep her, but there's always a wild sense of excitement to realise it again.

"You're Toronto," he says, smiling at her. "I _remember._ I know lots of things."

"I'm sure you do, Mitchell," she says, smiling back, joy flooding through her veins. "You seem very smart."

"I am," he says proudly. "I'm good at kindergarten and I'm good at soccer and I'm the best at hockey."

She laughs. "The very best?"

"I am," he insists, face losing a little humour, gaining a little determination. "I'm the best, and one day, I'm gonna be a Maple Leaf."

"Well," she says, equally serious. "I suppose I'll have to watch you play, then, won't I?"

"Not until fall," Mitchell replies, face falling. "I have soccer in the summer and then hockey when it starts getting cold. Will you come watch me in the fall?"

"I will," she promises. "Do you know about handshakes, Mitchell?"

He looks up at her, a frown pinching at his face. "My name is only Mitchell when I'm in trouble," he says. "When I'm good, everybody calls me Mitch."

She laughs. "Mitch, then. What do you know of handshakes?"

"Grown-ups do them," he replies. "On TV and at work and stuff."

"They do," she agrees. "People shake hands for many reasons, but one of them is to seal a promise."

"A promise," he echoes. "Like a pinky swear?"

"Like a grown-up pinky swear," she answers. There is no small amount of magic in a pinky swear, but it's less formal, less consequential. She holds out her hand. "I promise that I will watch you play hockey in the fall."

He looks at her hand, then her face, then her hand again before putting his hand in hers and holding on. "Okay," he says as she moves their hands up and down, close enough to a proper handshake for the promise to hold. "I'm gonna play so good, you'll see. I'm super fast."

"I can't wait to see," she says, and he smiles up at her, blue and white swirling like clouds in his eyes until he blinks.

Yes, she thinks as he turns his focus back to the soccer game. Yes, this boy is hers and hers and hers.

-0-

It is... difficult, Toronto admits in the safety of her own mind, when her team's performance is so bad.

She has endured a lot in her time, but there's nothing quite like the way her walls quake, her people howl when everything that can go wrong in the Air Canada Centre does. It's been worse than this, she knows, harder and harder still, but it takes a lot out of her, the anger and the grief and the pain of her people watching as everything breaks, breaks, breaks.

(She hears from Pittsburgh that Phil is well. She and Phil had always kept a careful truce, and she's as happy as she can be for him now, but it's not very happy at all in the face of everything else she's feeling. She doesn't think she can be blamed for it, not truly.)

It takes some time, but excitement starts to bubble up; it mixes with everything else at first, everything sweet tinged with the sour, sticky feeling of resentment around the edges, but the closer it draws to the draft, the more Toronto can feel it all around her.

Hope.

There is wild, boundless joy when she steps to the microphone and leans in; for once, she and the men at the table are in agreement over her choice, though they might have different reasons for making it. Lamoriello and Shanahan and Hunter and Dubas see Auston Matthews as the elite player they need for the team's future, and while Toronto agrees with them, that's not what she notices about the young man, not at first, not at second, not at third.

He has a good heart, a strong spirit, a capacity for care, she sees when she studies him. He isn't free with his laughter or his smiles, but when someone manages to make him happy, he's brilliant and bright. Phoenix watches him with clear pride, and it's not difficult to see why.

Toronto calls the name of Auston Matthews and watches as he rises, as he embraces his mother, father, sisters. He makes his way down the stairs and across the floor, pausing briefly when Phoenix rises from her seat and holds out her hands, upturned. He doesn't hesitate to place his hands in hers; this is something they've done before, clearly, but Toronto can find no red dirt in his footsteps, no sand in his hair. Phoenix is proud of him, yes, but she has no claim to him.

"Welcome," she says as he approaches her, as he leans down so she can press a kiss to his forehead. "Welcome, Auston Matthews."

"Thanks," he says, quiet but firm, smiling in the exact way she knows Mitch will make him smile, that he'll make Mitch smile in return. He laughs a little. "Phoenix told me to buy a good winter coat and a bunch of beanies."

"The first thing you should know," she says, hoping he recognises her tone as teasing, "is that in Canada, we call them toques."

He laughs, bold and bright, as he offers his arm to help her from the stage, and Toronto smiles. She has chosen well and she knows it. He will play well, give his heart and soul to the team, and he will lead them farther than many alive can remember them going. He will be a friend to Mitch, too, and it isn't hard to see how Auston will blossom with Mitch's sunny smiles, how he'll warm up to him and laugh with him and give him the friendship that he desires, but it's just as easy to find the places where Auston will fit into other parts of Mitch's life, too.

Toronto smiles as Auston leads her backstage. She doesn't need to spoil that surprise for either of them; they'll find their own way, in time.

-0-

"Dylan Strome isn't the worst and I'm mad about it," Mitch announces. He drops into a snowdrift, sighing loudly as it compacts beneath his weight. He doesn't move his arms like he had as a child, doesn't attempt to make snow angels or build a snowman. "I know you already know you were right, but this is me saying it: you were right."

"And you're upset about it," Toronto ventures. "Because you have a new friend?"

"I'm not upset, I'm annoyed," Mitch corrects. "I don't like being wrong."

She creaks out a laugh. "I've known a lot of people in my time, Mitch. None of them have ever enjoyed being wrong."

"Yeah, I guess," Mitch says, flashing a smile. "My dad always says stuff like 'I'd be happy to change my mind about this thing if you can prove I'm wrong about it,' but he's never actually happy when it happens."

Toronto laughs. "That seems fairly common."

"Don't tell my dad he's _common,_ " Mitch advises, making a face. "I mean, he's cool, for a dad. I don't think he'd like hearing that he's just like everyone else, though."

"That's also fairly common," Toronto points out. "Everyone wants to be the focal point."

"Eh," Mitch says, shrugging. It pushes snow up into his ears, and he yelps, pushing himself up and shaking his head vigorously. Toronto bites a lip to keep from laughing as he puts his hands over his ears to warm them, then gives up and rolls his eyes. "Whatever. I like being one of the big names in London, but I don't think I'd want to be, like, _the guy_ in the NHL."

He hasn't given up his dream of playing for her, she knows, but all the same, he talks about it less. She doesn't know if it's superstition or modesty or a quiet sort of fear, but she tries her best to build him up. She knows how many others will try to tear him down, after all. "The people here will love you," she says firmly. "And perhaps you'll be the kind of star you always dreamed of when you were younger, but perhaps you'll be one star in a sea of them."

"A constellation," he muses, tilting his head back a little to look up at the night sky. "Not one of the Dippers, though. I don't want to hold anything except a hockey stick."

There's a flash of silver, Mitch older and more jubilant as he stands beside a man his age he hasn't met yet, both of them awestruck at the fine silver trophy held between them. Toronto smiles. "We'll have to create a new constellation for you," she says instead of mentioning the Stanley Cup. That, she knows very well, is without a doubt a superstition.

He starts laughing. "As long as it's better than the Mooterus," he says, falling back into his snowdrift. "There's no way I want to be a part of anything on that level."

Toronto snorts inelegantly; Dallas had defended the jersey with more vigour than dignity, and she'd seemed more relieved than upset when the team had finally retired the design. "I wouldn't stand for it," she promises. "We'll choose only the best stars to represent us."

"Good deal," Mitch says. He spreads his arms out slowly, pushing snow to the sides. He makes a small noise in the back of his throat when his arms are fully outstretched. "We need a leaf constellation anyway. What's up with that not being something people have already done?"

"If there was already a leaf, then you wouldn't be able to be part of it," Toronto points out. "Creating a new one will be difficult enough. Changing one that's already in place would be impossible."

"You're right," Mitch says, turning to look at her, cheek pressed into the snow. For a boy who had been fussing about the cold on his ears just moments ago, he seems perfectly content to lay in it now. "First about Stromer, and now about the stars. I'd ask when you got so smart, but I feel like the answer is that you've just always been this way."

She laughs again. "That's close enough to the truth.

-0-

There's snow in the air and on the ground, enough to be felt but not enough to slow her people down; it's the holidays, after all, and there's little enough time as it is. There's no use in stopping unless there's no alternative.

Mitch is walking around, camera crew following him and his teammates through the Christmas Market, and maybe... maybe it's time, now. There's love enough in the season, usually, for people to lower their guard enough to be patient with her. Not everyone loves her on sight.

It's easy enough to create a distraction, a diversion, to nudge Mitch one way and Auston the other, to give Mitch the perfect gift for his mother while she rises, collects herself, and approaches Auston.

"Hello," she says, and he doesn't startle, doesn't lean back, doesn't seem surprised to see her.

"Hey, sup," he says, nodding a little, and she smiles.

"I brought you here," she says.

He nods again. "Yeah. I remember. I was there."

"I brought you here for a purpose," she clarifies. "And while winning hockey games is good and I'd like you to continue with that, that's not the reason."

His expression softens a little. "Mitch."

She knew that he was the right one, but confirmation never hurts. "Yes."

"He's good," Auston says, like a revelation and a promise all at once. "He's—we're good."

"Yes," she says again. There's nothing that goes on here that she doesn't know.

"So," Auston says, dragging it out, pushing the vowel forward. It sounds so unlike what she's used to, what she's cultivated, and she can see in a flash the differences that Mitch finds so captivating.

"I'm not here to judge you," she says, though of course she is, and to his credit, he just blinks and shrugs a shoulder. "I'm here to... evaluate."

"I'm not going to leave him," Auston says, quiet and sure, and his warm, brilliant spark of hope flashes and holds steady.

"Good," she replies, firm, unyielding. "He won't leave you, either. He loves and he loves and he loves."

"And he's loved," Auston says, almost gently, a small smile on his face. "A lot, in a lot of different ways."

She wants to say—a lot of things, things about love and youth and the bitter cold that seeps in when those things fade, but she nods and steps back and back and back, fading before Mitch turns the corner. He knows she checks up on him, but she needn't be caught at it.

-0-

"Ugh," Mitch says, more a sound than a word, more a sentiment than a sentence. "You know all the hockey players from around here, right?"

"Not just the hockey players," Toronto replies. It's winter and the Leafs are doing poorly; she thinks, somewhat wryly, that it's not specific enough a condition to mark a certain time. It has been different, though not recently, and it will be again, much closer in the future. "I keep track of everyone. Everything."

"That sounds like hell," Mitch replies. "Anyway, there's this guy who's, like, always under my skin during games. He's from around here."

Dylan Strome, she knows, is from Lorne Park, tall and bright and affable. He and Mitch are too alike to be friends, not without truly getting to know each other, but she has seen enough brothers who pit themselves against each other to suggest anything. Time will bring them together and she needn't interfere.

It's difficult not to needle, though. "You've faced many opponents," she says instead. "And you'll face many more. I'm not sure whether to congratulate you or pity you if you've truly met your match this early in your career."

Mitch scoffs as only a teenager can, and she hides a smile. This boy of hers is bright and opinionated and so, so very young, still. "He's not my _match._ I'm, like, easily a hundred times better than he is."

"A hundred," she echoes. "How does he play in the OHL, then, I wonder?"

"He plays on McDavid's team," Mitch mutters, rebellious. "He's so annoying. Tall and obnoxious, like being BFFs with the next coming of Hockey Jesus makes him better than I am."

"Ah," she says, nodding along. "So he's completely without talent?"

"I mean," Mitch says, huffing a little. "I guess he's, like, okay at making plays. Seeing where people are gonna be on the ice."

"Then he's greedy," Toronto suggests. "Refuses to pass."

"No," Mitch says, frowning. "He's a pretty good playmaker. Sets up a bunch of stuff."

"Then he must be a poor teammate," she says, nodding again. "Terrible to be around."

Mitch groans. "I know what you're trying to do," he says, but his tone isn't accusatory. "You're not gonna, like, trick me into being his friend."

She laughs. "You think me capable of such a thing?"

"I know you are," he says, smiling back at her as if he hadn't been complaining mere moments before. " _You_ know you are. You'd love it if everyone here got along."

Toronto lifts a shoulder. There are times when it feels like the mantle that settles there is too much to bear; right now, though, she can manage it without too much strain. "It would be easier to carry the weight of this city if its inhabitants loved one another a little more, but you having a squabble with one boy from Mississauga isn't causing me a noticeable amount of stress, child."

He suddenly looks guilty, though. "Shit, sorry," he says, reaching out. His fingers hover above her shoulder; there's no way for her to share her burden and she wouldn't even if she could, but he seems to be searching for a way to help her anyway. "I can try to make friends with him. I don't want to make things harder for you."

She reaches up to gently take his hand in her own. "Mitch. Nobody in this city, or in any other city, is perfect. I don't expect you to love everyone you ever meet. You're human."

"But if I make friends with Stromer, then that's two people's dislike of each other off your back," he points out. "That's not a ton, I know, but it's not nothing. Like, you might not notice it, but it would still be less."

"It would," she acknowledges. "But you have to make your own decisions for your own reasons."

He smiles, brief and brilliant, and shakes his head a little. "And me not wanting to stress you out more isn't a good enough reason?"

"You're allowed to dislike people," Toronto says firmly.

"And I'm allowed to decide I was being an asshole for no reason, and I'm allowed to make more friends," he says back, just as certain. He laughs after a moment. "So much for you not talking me into being friends with him."

"I believe the word you used was 'trick,' not 'talk,'" she says lightly. "You don't have to, Mitch. Your choices are always and forever your own."

"Yeah," he replies. "Except for the whole thing where you're my city, and I called you Mom until I was like, seven, and now that I'm getting older I'm also learning what it's like to not want to let down the people you love."

She smiles wider. "It's an important lesson," she agrees. "So you'll make friends with him? The middle Strome boy?"

"The _middle_ one," Mitch echoes, face doing something complicated and amusing. "God, there are multiple Stromes. I hope he's the worst one, for the family's sake."

"That might not be a good line to lead with," she advises, but Mitch's expression melts into a smile before she even finishes speaking, and she laughs. It's what he'd meant for her to do, she knows as he joins her.

-0-

Mitch's laughter is wild, incandescent, as he skates around the ice, raising his prize for everyone to see. There are cameras everywhere, recording the exultant expression on his face, the pure, shining joy he radiates when he brings the trophy down, presses his lips to it, and raises it back above his head.

Auston had had it first, and then Mitch; it had gone around and around the ice after that, once with each member of the team. She cares about all of them, of course she does, but she doesn't have to pretend not to play favourites, not here, not now. She walks over to Mitch as he stands next to his mother, his arm around her shoulders, and Toronto suddenly sees him as the toddler she'd first met. Bonnie had folded him neatly into her arms then; now, though, now Mitch dwarfs her, and Toronto feels a sense of the passage of time like she often doesn't.

Strange, she thinks, noting for the first time the lines on Bonnie's face, the gray in Paul's hair. They're older, younger, exactly the age they are in this moment, and Toronto has to glance away before she loses all track of time.

"Yo," Auston says, skating up and stopping sharply beside her. "This is _lit._ "

Well, Toronto thinks wryly, nothing to bring you firmly into the present like the parlance of its youth. "It is," she agrees. "Is it all you dreamed of, Phoenix boy?"

Auston laughs unreservedly. "More," he says, smiling openly. "Hey, you want a turn with it? Skate it around a little, or walk or something? Mitchy and I'll make sure you don't fall, if you want to go with it."

She laughs in response, creaky and windswept. "Thank you for the offer," she says, because it's kinder than showing him how she can dig into the ice, how she could annihilate the forged winter that's so carefully kept in the midst of her summer heat. "I'm content to watch the rest of you enjoy it."

"Let me know if you change your mind," Auston says, nodding easily. "It's chill. Any of the guys would be happy to give you a hand with it." He grins, somewhat sharp at the edges, and tilts his head. "Or to just, like, hand it over without the help."

He's smarter than he lets on a lot of the time, and Toronto appreciates it, loves how he can be sharp and soft and poignant at just the right times. He's not perfect, not by a long stretch of the imagination, but he puts a good foot forward, and that's something she can absolutely appreciate.

"I will let you know if I change my mind," she says, giving him a small smile.

"'Kay, sweet," he replies, nodding once more before skating away.

"Hey," Mitch says from her other side, and when Toronto turns, he's leaning towards her. "Was he asking you about a turn with the Cup?"

"I have no need to hold it," she replies. "Though I thank you for the offer."

He smiles and shakes his head a little, and when he reaches out to hug her, she can feel her colours racing through his body. He's so very much her child in this moment that she's sure, were he to fall and cut himself and bleed, it would be blue and white dripping from his veins.

"I hope this makes you as happy as it makes me," he whispers, bent down so he can say it to her and only her. "I hope you're proud of all the guys here."

"I am," she says, fierce and honest, and she grips him harder around the waist. She looks older than she is most of the time; there's strength in her that surprises a lot of people, but she's not afraid to show it to people when it's needed.

Mitch, though, has never thought her weak. She's always known it, but she knows it even more now, because he sighs and lets his tension free as she embraces him. He lets her be the pillar, the strength, and Toronto loves all of her children, but right now—

Well. She's very glad that she's not expected not to play favourites in this moment.

-0-

There are many ways to begin loving someone, Toronto has learned over time, and humans have discovered all of them and invented a few more besides.

Some meet and find love before they find the true identity of the person they've fallen for; some build love cautiously, brick by brick, until they have something that is fortified to withstand whatever can be thrown at them. Love can spring up and burn out in the blink of an eye, or it can be built from kindling wood and dryer lint, fanned until the flame catches the logs and stoked so no matter what, the coals remain hot enough to warm a home. It depends on the people involved, wholly and completely, so even though Toronto knows that Mitch and Auston will build the kind of love that lasts, she can't look at a fixed point in their lives and see how they got there, what they did to make it to that point.

It means that she watches, sometimes, to make sure that she wasn't mistaken, that this boy she had chosen to stand with her own child loves him in all the ways he should be loved.

It's a baseless worry, she finds. Mitch loves freely, his heart on his sleeve, but Auston treats him with care. He never takes Mitch's heart for granted, never treats him callously or without regard, and though it's clearly not in his nature as much as it is in Mitch's, he doesn't hide the feelings that develop the longer that he and Mitch are friends. It's slowly built, their relationship, but it's the kind of love that people can build a home in.

She chose well, and though she's not surprised to find it, she is glad about it.

"Thanks," Mitch says to her one night. It's late, both in the evening and in the season; he's standing on the balcony outside his downtown apartment, and she walks out of the shadow cast by the balcony above and stands next to him. It's hard not to answer when he calls so clearly for her. "For Auston, I mean. I asked you for a friend, and you found..."

"He is a friend to you," she offers when he stops. "He was always a friend, before anything else you've built upon that."

"He was, and he is," Mitch agrees. "But I wasn't even looking for someone like him, y'know? I was just focusing on my hockey, on trying to make the team." He laughs. "I don't want to give him all the credit or anything, but I sort of wonder if part of the reason I tried even harder to stay up this year is because I didn't want to be somewhere he wasn't."

"You're here because you're good enough to be here," Toronto says. "Anyone can see that." Even Hunter has come around, she thinks with a bit of a huff. Humans can be so _stubborn._

"I am," he agrees, no trace of an argument in his tone. He laughs a little beneath his breath. "I mean, I did ask you for a friend, and then I sort of also asked you for a centre. And I didn't really get to play with him this year, but..."

"I told you that I would give you a team that you would fit into," she says. "I've done my best. There's work yet to be done, and there's only so much that I can control, but I think it's a good fit. What are your thoughts?"

"That it's the best team I've ever played with, and it's not even close," Mitch says fervently. "I mean, it was great winning the Mem Cup with the boys last year, but this team is just so much better. Playing with them makes _me_ better. It's incredible."

She laughs, off-tune wind chimes clanking against each other, echoing off the buildings across the street and back to them. "I'm glad," she says. "I'm very glad to hear that, Mitch."

"But seriously, thanks," he says again. "For drafting me, and for drafting Auston. He's... we're good. We're gonna be amazing. As a team, and as... as more than that. As just the two of us."

"You already are," she says. "Both of you individually, and together as well. I'm glad to know that he makes you happy."

"Yeah," Mitch says, smiling softly as he gazes out into the night. "I am, too."

-0-

Mitch is fifteen and small, smaller than many others his age, but he's fast and he's smart and he knows how to use everything he touches to his advantage. Toronto is so very proud of her son.

He's leaving her in the fall.

"This is good news," she says, keeping her voice gentle, refusing to add to the stress emanating from his frame.

"I'm going away," he replies, hunching his back and leaning over. "London isn't close. I feel like I'm abandoning you." _Like I'm being abandoned,_ he doesn't say, but she's long past needing words to understand meaning.

She laughs. Some of her kind have laughter best described as bells, as wind chimes, as music; she knows she sounds more like car doors being slammed, like the rustle of fallen leaves scattering across cold pavement, but the sound brings Mitch's shoulders down from around his ears anyway. "You'll be back," she promises. "Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave, child. It means you can come home again later."

"How can you miss me if I don't go away, right?" he jokes.

"You humans and your sayings," she says, sighing a little, but he smiles briefly. He knows her humour, even if many find it odd, off-putting.

He leans back and sighs out a breath into the warm evening air above him; she watches it leave him, then calls a gust of wind almost without meaning to. It takes his breath, mingles with it, pulls it into the ether. He's part of her as much as she's part of him, but it doesn't hurt to remind him that they're connected. She doesn't mind the reminder, either.

"It's gonna be weird," he says eventually. "London, I mean."

"You will thrive there," she says firmly. Of this she has no doubt; she has, after all, seen exactly how high he will climb with his new team.

He lifts one shoulder, lets it drop. "I mean, probably," he says. He has no false modesty, but neither does he brag; she wants to push him to boast, to let everyone around him know how special he is, but most days it's enough that he knows, that she knows.

It doesn't hurt that he delights in stories of her boasting about him to her kin, either.

"It will be strange for me, too," she volunteers. It's difficult for her to express how she feels about people in ways they understand; it does no good, she's found, to tell someone that they remind her of a car idling near Yonge and Bloor, or a specific bush in the gardens of Casa Loma, or the strength of the wind blowing north off of the lake. Agreement and disagreement, she has found, are the easiest expressions of emotion she can muster.

"I've been gone before," he says, turning to face her. "You'll be fine. You're _Toronto._ "

She smiles at him. "You'll be fine, too," she promises. "As you've said, you've been gone before. We'll see each other soon enough."

-0-

Toronto meddles, always, but there are things even she doesn't touch. Hockey's older than she is, even, and she's survived her beloved team being bad before. As long as they're team, as long as they're family, she leaves them be.

But oh, when they're good—

There's a warmth that arrives in the fall every year with the arrival of the new season. It's at odds with the way the temperature drops, but hope is a warm, bright thing while it lasts, and there's hope in the city as they look at the team now.

Toronto watches as her people fall in love, quick and desperate after all this time, and she watches as her boy, her blue and white pride and joy, finds his own sort of love, finds happiness beyond what he'd ever known, finds laughter and long nights and someone to come home to. She watches as Auston smiles like she'd hoped he would, as Mitch grows brighter and brighter when Auston moves closer, as he loves and is loved, as he moves through her streets, introducing him to her, and her to him.

She says nothing; she waits. Auston makes Mitch happy, makes him loved, and she loves him for that, can't do anything else. He loves Mitch wholly and unreservedly, but there's trepidation in her still.

But she can be patient.

She watches as the season wears on, and for the first time in a long, long time, the spark of hope doesn't fade. It grows, and it's stoked into a fire, and when the snow melts and the trees bud and the flowers push their way through the cracks in the earth, her boy is _beloved._

It's not everything, not all at once, but there's buoyancy. There's whispered excitement, his name on the lips of those gathered in the streets, in the bars, in their homes. She hears his name, falling like a prayer from Auston's lips when they're alone together, like he's treasured.

And he is.

It goes and it goes; the team grows better and better, and Mitch shines in the city, and she hears stories of him from the others of her kind, his brilliance and quickness and kind heart, and the desert boy who follows Toronto's sunshine no matter what.

She is old and old and older still, but it's not as if she ages; time doesn't work for her as it does for those who live within her walls. She's fine with that; she's no use for time anyway. Still, she knows that it's years that she watches, waiting, waiting.

She can, after all, be patient.

-0-

There is joy, joy, _joy_ in every person, every heart, every soul that Toronto touches, and every swirl of it pushes her higher and higher. Everything feels light, euphoric, full of life; there are people weeping with their relief and happiness, and Toronto feels all of it, like a balm that's soothing a wound she wasn't even aware she had suffered.

The arena is electric; the atmosphere, yes, but as Toronto looks around she can see blue and white arcing from person to person, filling all the air in the building as the fans celebrate. She focuses outside but doesn't see much of a change; it's late at night, but the air is filled with bright light and heat and _feeling,_ and she has to close her eyes and smile, wide and wild and ecstatic.

"Excuse me," someone says politely, and Toronto opens her eyes to see a young woman dressed in team colours, a smile to match Toronto's own stretched across her face. "They're ready for you, if you're ready to come down."

Toronto laughs, feels it bounce around in the room she's been sitting in, and stands. "Oh," she says, glancing around. "I've been ready for this for a long, long time, child."

"I know," the woman murmurs, and Toronto smiles wider when the woman's eyes swirl with her colours. This woman isn't her daughter, not in the way her children are _hers,_ but tonight... tonight, Toronto thinks as she follows the woman from the room, more people will claim her as a parent, and tonight, she will let them.

The sound would seem deafening were she human; as it is, she still flinches a bit when it hits her, the singing and shouting and jubilation of the thousands of people in the arena, the thousands and thousands more in the streets, in their homes. She had almost forgotten what even the memory of this feeling was like, and surely, she wonders as she follows the woman down, down, surely it was never like _this_ before. It's not too big and it's not too much, not for her, but how would she have ever been able to forget this precise feeling?

If walking through the crowd is jubilation, then stepping onto the ice is euphoria. It's the centre of attention, yes, where all the positive energy is focused, but on the ice, the players' feelings are magnified. She looks around at each and every member of the team, focusing on face after face and feeling her own emotions rise and bubble and threaten to burst out of her with sheer wild abandon. She has a job to do first, though, so she straightens her back and steps across the ice, walking towards the table that's been set up and the prize, her team's pride and joy, sitting there upon it.

The filigree and the engravings are all familiar to her; after all, this cup is hers, in a way. It spends most of its time sitting quietly in a building downtown, there with its twin and all the attention they garner together. Even as it's been hers, though, it hasn't been _hers_ like this in far, far too long.

"Oh," she murmurs, drawing close and focusing on the bumps and grooves she knows so well. "Hello, darling."

The man standing at the table clears his throat, awkward and fumbling. She's never met this one, not in this situation, but she knows from watching countless times that this is his nature, to swallow the jeers of the crowd and escape before he can spew his true feelings back at them. "We have to take a picture," he says, gesturing at the man squatting on the ice a few meters away. "And then you can celebrate."

She smiles at him, feeling her lips spread around the height of the CN tower, the breadth of the Rogers Centre. Her city is around her and within her and it's everything she can see, hear, _feel,_ and she lets her expression show every last ounce of that emotion. The man visibly swallows, and she laughs.

Toronto makes him uncomfortable, she realises. She quite likes it.

-0-

"I'm gonna win you the Stanley Cup," Mitch says, voice filled with the kind of confidence that only a child of eight can muster. "When I grow up, I mean. I'm gonna be so, so good that you'll wanna draft me, and then I'll be the _captain_ just like Mats Sundin, and we're gonna play _amazing_ good and we'll beat the Red Wings and then Steve Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom are gonna _cry._ "

"And you want to make them cry?" Toronto asks, hiding an amused smile. "That seems cruel."

"Well, I want to win," Mitch says. "And if I win, that means they lose, and if you lose, sometimes you cry. I bet when it's the Cup, you cry a _whole lot._ I don't want them to be sad forever, but maybe just sad for a little while." He pauses. "When I beat them and win the Cup and they lose!"

Toronto hums and thinks about the future: about easy things to explain, like retirement, and harder things, like conference realignments, and things that would be impossible to explain without upsetting a boy so young, like the captaincy of his future team. It's not worth the latter, and the middle would likely just be confusing, so she sticks with the issue she can probably relate. "And you think that Yzerman and Lidstrom will play forever?"

"Yes," Mitch says, instant and certain. He frowns, though. "Well. Maybe not."

"Maybe not," Toronto agrees. She has no contact with her kin on the other side of the globe, not often, but she knows of Avesta's pride, of how she draws those who love her back. Lidstrom is aging gracefully, but still, he's aging; he will play for a handful of years more, she knows, but all good things draw to an end eventually. Yzerman, Toronto thinks, will let the public know soon enough that he's played his last game. Hopefully Mitch isn't too crushed by the thought of never getting to play against him.

"I mean," Mitch says slowly, as if he's thinking something through. "Even _Wayne Gretzky_ had to retire."

He says Gretzky's name with reverence, with awe; Toronto knows that one day Mitch will meet Gretzky's heir, will even meet the man himself. She also knows better than to let Mitch know any of that. Humans are remarkably resilient, but they can be startlingly fragile as well. Toronto needn't shatter any of Mitch's illusions about his idol, not at this age.

"So if Gretzky had to retire, then anyone can," Toronto says. "Rather, everyone can. They'll all have to, if even the Great One couldn't play forever."

Mitch sighs, then perks up. "Super Mario is still playing," he says. "He was super super sick, but he got better and he came back. Maybe Lidstrom will just take a year off or something and then come back even better than ever."

Toronto hides a smile. "Perhaps," she agrees. "Only time will tell."

"I'm gonna play here forever and ever and ever," Mitch says dreamily, and she smiles and lets him believe it.

-0-

He is small, smaller now than he'd seemed in the summer before he'd left her, seemingly smaller even than he'd looked years ago, telling her that he played hockey and promising he'd bring her trophy back home. He'd been happy enough beneath the nerves when he'd headed to London in the fall, eager to show every scout and general manager and city representative what he could do, but London has beaten something out of him, has stolen something from the heart of his soul. He's here now, within her borders though he's meant to still be away, and she can feel something squeeze her painfully though she has nothing like a heart to hurt.

"Oh, child," she says, pulling herself together and kneeling in front of him in one motion. She is not so old that she can't manage, and too much his mother to keep herself from comforting him for even the moment it would take her to rise out of sight, in a place where she might not startle him further. She takes his hands in hers. "What pains you?"

Mitch takes a shuddering breath and leans forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. "I can't do it," he says, choking on the words but forcing them out anyway. "The Knights—hockey—"

She says nothing when he begins openly weeping, just cradles him closely and closes her eyes, struggling against the tears she feels in this moment. It's not that she's never hurt by what her people endure, the pain and cruelty, the violence and illness, but she can't focus on it, not on an individual level. She has so much to oversee, and she wants things to be better for every individual person, but if she lets herself wallow in it, everything else would have to fall by the wayside just for the sheer magnitude of wrongs she would suffer. It makes it more startling in times like this, where she lets herself take on the pain, allows herself to truly feel the loss and confusion and self-doubt that her child, her beloved son, is feeling over and over again.

He subsides after a while, still trembling in her arms but no longer crying. "I'm sorry," he says, voice hoarse and heavy. "I don't think—I was going to win you a Cup. I don't know if I can. I'm so sorry."

She shudders and tightens her hold on him before letting go, only pulling back so she can look him in the eyes. "You are not now, nor will you ever be, a disappointment, Mitchell," she says, quiet but sure. "If you have lost your love for the game, if you have lost faith in it, so be it. You are a fine man, and whatever you do with your life, you are _enough._ "

He reaches towards her slowly, brushing at her cheek. "You're crying," he says, wonder and awe in his voice. She glances down, sees the blue and white streak on his fingers. "For me?"

"You are my child and I love you," she says simply. "What else could I do?"

He trembles violently. "I want to play," he says, and it's like he's testing the words out. "I just—can't. It's like something broke."

Toronto is going to have such _words_ with London, but the fire building in her veins has no place in this moment. "Broken things can be mended," she says gently. She has seen his future, moments near and far, even if she hasn't captured every detail; somehow, though, she hadn't anticipated just how much this would hurt him, would hurt her. "It may take work, and it may be difficult."

"I'm not afraid of hard work," he replies. It's the first confident thing she's heard from him today; it's buried deep, but it's there, the thin thread of belief and determination. "You really think I can do it? Fix my hockey?"

She knows he can, knows he will; it doesn't make her answer right now any less important, though. "I believe in you," she says. "I believe in _you,_ Mitch, no matter what."

He breathes out, slow and steady, and the smile he finally produces might be small, but she can put her trust in it.

-0-

There is a fine silver cup in a hall downtown when she emerges. It's not new to her; it's not new to Mitch, either, but he burns so fiercely with joy to see it, to touch it and lift it and press his lips against it, and she rejoices for him.

She's not looking at Mitch now, though. She's looking at Auston, his hair shorter than when they first met, his shoulders somehow broader, his eyes quieter, the lines around them showing the happiness he's had. "Sup," he greets her again.

"You have given him so much," she says. She can smile for him, for this.

"He's given me more," Auston counters, and he tilts his head and she can see it: the joy in him, the love that spills out of his entire body at the thought of Mitch, of the life she's watched them build together.

"And now you're taking him from me," she says, doesn't let it break her, doesn't let it show. She has survived a lot. She'll survive the ache of him going, of him finding his sunshine in Arizona.

"No," he says, smiling.

Little surprises her, but this—this does. "No?" she echoes. Her hearing has never faltered, but surely—

"He loves you," Auston says, simple and clear. "I love him, and I love what he loves." He wrinkles his nose, then. "Except his weird Gatorade, but, well. We're staying here."

"But you're a child of the desert," she says slowly. "You thrive in the sun, the warmth."

Auston looks at her, calm, level. "And you think he isn't that for me?"

"I see," she says, and she smiles and smiles and smiles.

Mitch appearing isn't sudden, but time moves strangely when you exist outside of it. "Hi," he says, and he's two years old on skates, five with a Maple Leafs flag, eighteen and pulling on her jersey, thirty-four and hanging it up, now.

"And you're staying," she says to him. Her smile hasn't dimmed.

"We're staying," he confirms, reaching out to squeeze her hand. He has never hesitated to love her. "We love you. How could we go anywhere else?"

-0-

So yes, this is a story about Mitch Marner being loved. It's about the city that loves him, and the boy she brought him, and the home they built within her walls, loving her right back with all they're worth.

Love and love and love, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> -fun fact, in case you didn't know this already: there are two identical stanley cups. one is the presentation cup, which is the one that gets trotted around and handed to players and that babies pee in and people then eat cereal out of. the other cup, the original one that has lord stanley's actual cooties on it, sits quietly in the hockey hall of fame, and you can go up to it and touch it or hug it or whatever (BUT NOT LIFT IT ABOVE YOUR HEAD, that's only for winners, and i'm dead serious about that being a rule), and the only time it's ever not there is when it's off getting a new team's names inscribed, at which point the presentation cup takes its place. the more you know!
> 
> -the mooterus was... well, it sure _was._ the stars used it as their third jersey for a few years. it.... was. i honestly don't know how to describe the mooterus to anyone who isn't already familiar with it; i recently introduced it to my roommate and basically said "dallas made a mistake" and then showed her a photo. [here, have that photo.](http://thehockeyjersey.co/store/images/large/0514-dallasalt_LRG.jpg)
> 
> -mitch had a crisis of hockey faith and almost quit while he was in london, early on in his draft year. he's talked about it in a couple articles, i think, but [this article is worth reading overall](https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/big-read-skinny-maple-leafs-prospect-mitch-marner/) and goes in depth into it. enjoy your feelings!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic of] the never-ending present](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16414460) by [Talahui](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talahui/pseuds/Talahui)
  * [[podfic of] the never-ending present](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16414460) by [Talahui](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talahui/pseuds/Talahui)




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